According to the February 22 Washington Times, the Gestapo is
alive and well in the state of Texas:

"Jerry Shifflet received a $300 ticket last Friday. But it wasn't
from a cop catching him speeding. The ticket was written by an officer
patrolling his child's school. The offense: his 15-year old son cursed
at another student. Ticket-writing in schools is nothing new, said Karen
Olson, the district's Director of Security. She coordinates nine to twelve
city police officers and Department of Public Safety troopers each school
day... The fines they dispense range from about $250 to $500. In 2001,
police issued 132 tickets to students for disrupting class and 182 tickets
for disorderly conduct."

As my father used to say, sometimes I really regret the fact that Hitler
won the war.

Whatever happened to being sent to the principal's office? Or detention?
Or simple common sense? If a schoolboy uses a bad word, state troopers
stationed inside his school now ticket his parents? Why do we, the public,
put up with this sort of totalitarian nonsense?

Our ancestors, who evidently had more guts than we do, would have solved
this problem with tar, feathers, and a rail. We meekly allow ourselves
to be dragged through every absurdity, not even protesting. Since we have
decided to behave like sheep, we should not be surprised that we get fleeced,
then slaughtered.

What lies behind this bizarre policy in Texas schools? A few factors
are easy to identify:

 We have stripped schoolteachers of the authority they need to
maintain discipline. If they attempt to do so, they face a myriad of rules,
the violation of any one of which puts their job in jeopardy. And, they
face civil suits from parents if Johnny's or Susie's "self-esteem"
is damaged. If the miscreant is a minority, the teacher's situation is
even worse. Most of them gave up long ago, and now just go through the
motions and wait for retirement.

 Everyone is terrified to challenge any policy that is justified
by the magic word, "security." To oppose Gestapo tactics in
a school is to "put children in danger." (Dr. Johnson said that
patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel; today, scoundrels find safety
by hiding behind "children.") Few parents are willing to stand
up to the bureaucrats in the face of the "security" claptrap,
even when the policies are patently absurd.

 Political Correctness, aka cultural Marxism, works at every turn
to condition us as to the words we can and cannot use, hence the thoughts
we can and cannot think. From the PC perspective, the sooner kids learn
to fear the law for speaking a wrong word, the better.

 Finally, most Americans seem to accept without question that the
state can do anything to us it wants. Here too we have been conditioned,
by one absurd law after another: by tax forms that are incomprehensible
but must be filled out accurately, by "wetlands" legislation
that keeps farmers from plowing and builders from building, by "asset
forfeiture" laws that allow the state to seize your property without
a conviction or even a trial.

We have accepted so much that we cannot draw the line anywhere.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that 50 years ago, America was still
a free country.